


Just Like in My Dreams

by ShadowsNDust



Category: Life Is Strange (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, F/F, References to Depression, Suicidal Thoughts, Teen Angst, Teen Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-10
Updated: 2021-02-10
Packaged: 2021-03-17 02:00:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,441
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29342478
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShadowsNDust/pseuds/ShadowsNDust
Summary: She'd had a storm in her heart for years by that point. Always brewing, but always in her dreams. And then it wasn't.Viewers discretion is advised, the story deals with theme's of depression and thoughts of suicide. If these hit too close to home please seek out the suicide prevention hotline.
Relationships: Maxine "Max" Caulfield/Chloe Price, Rachel Amber & Chloe Price
Comments: 2
Kudos: 3





	Just Like in My Dreams

**Author's Note:**

> I hadn't really wanted to upload this when I wrote it about two years back, but I felt like uploading other stuff and then this reminded me it was sitting in my drive. I'm not claiming this is the best representation, the saddest or most accurate depiction of the emotions. But still, I do want to give something of a trigger warning for the route the story takes. It follows canon fairly closely, just with added elements.
> 
> That being said, if you find yourself getting lost in depressing thoughts or feel like it may help even the slightest, I will say that the suicide prevention hotline is just a google away, though I don't know about the rules on the site regarding posting phone numbers.

The first of the dreams came two days after Rachel had gone missing.

Yes, missing, no matter what people said or implied to her, Chloe knew Rachel wouldn’t leave. Not without her.

She stayed up for forty-eight hours straight looking all over the bay for her, but there was no sign, no notes, no clues.

When Chloe finally slept, she dreamed that she was on the cliff next to the lighthouse. Storm clouds gathered in the distance, her father sat on the bench next to her. Standing at the edge of the cliff was Rachel, they were both watching her, identical sad smiles.

She ignored it, her dreams had always been weird. But dreams were dreams, and dreams didn’t mean anything. Not really.

The police don’t get involved in the search for Rachel until nearly a week passed and finally, Rachel's dad thinks that maybe something is wrong. Chloe was already putting up missing person posters.

At night, not every night but often enough, she dreams of storm clouds on the horizon, thunder in the distance slowly getting closer. She dreams of her dad and Rachel, sitting with her, not saying anything. But waiting.

The months pass. Not quickly, and not peacefully. Chloe loses her sense of self without any anchors to tie her down. She starts smoking more, putting herself to sleep just so that she can see Rachel in her dreams on the cliff. She loses her job and Frank starts coming after her with greater intensity over the money she owes him.

None of it matters, not without Rachel here. Chloe had long since known that everybody left, but she’d thought Rachel had been the exception.

In her dreams the storm grows closer, the winds whipping at her clothes. But the winds never touched Rachel or William, they both stood by her, waiting.

She tries her best to care day to day, she tries getting the money together for Frank, fleecing rich kids in bars and shit. Caring became too hard, so instead, she was constantly angry with everyone and everything around her.

But above all, she’s angry with herself. Furious at her own weakness and frailty. Because something must be truly wrong with her if the people in her life kept leaving her.

Sometimes, some nights, she thinks about how much easier it would be if she were just not around anymore. On those nights she avoids her mom and step-douche, and in her dreams, she can’t face her dad or Rachel.

Their hands upon her shoulders stabilize her. But it's a fleeting feeling when the winds feel like they’re going to pick her up and carry her away from this town.

One night she was in a bar, winning money and losing herself to drinking more heavily than she should have. She wound up passing out. While asleep she dreamt of the storm again. But this time it's a hurricane, fully formed and bearing down on Arcadia Bay.

She felt like this town deserves to be wiped out, even if it’s just in her dreams. Because hasn’t it taken enough from her? She deserves revenge.

She woke up in Nathan Prescott's dorm room, he was taking pictures of her. It made her sick and angry, but mostly unsurprised that this shit hole would throw yet another thing at her like this.

Escaping from Nathan wasn’t hard, he was a twig compared to her. And then she thinks that maybe she could use this new brand of shiftiness in her favor.

The next day, she blackmailed Nathan, telling him that they needed to meet up, or she’d tell everyone how much of a sick fuck he was. He agreed, unsurprisingly, the Prescott’s were obsessed with their public image in this town.

That day changed everything. She met him in the bathroom, he was even more fucking psycho than usual. He pulled a gun.

Then the fire alarm went off. She shoved him aside and got out.

Come to find that an old friend of hers had saved her life that morning. Max Caulfield, back from Seattle, after five years of near-total radio silence.

Max fit back into her life like a missing puzzle piece, snug and secure and just right. It was the most alive Chloe had felt since the day Rachel went missing.

Or it was, briefly. Max was a fucking superhero, time powers and everything, and so they started snooping, investigating, and mostly dumbly stumbling onto things.

And despite the thrill of all of it, the more they learned the colder Chloe became. Rachel, her angel, had gotten caught up in something so dark and terrible. Even with Max now holding her in the waking world she felt like she was being taken away by the storm the more she learned.

Max told her about her adventures in time, some things she clearly left out, but she shared more than she didn’t. And then bad things happened, very bad, and Max tried fixing them.

But nothing changed for her, instead what Chloe got was a story; her dad was still alive in this version Max created, Rachel still missing, but this time it was Chloe who had a car crash. That Chloe had spent time with her Max and then begged her to let her die with a good memory fresh in her mind.

Max had granted that Chloe’s wish and Max sobbed the whole story into Chloe’s sleeve while she rocked the time traveler back and forth. Despite how clearly this affected Max, Chloe couldn’t help but feel a bit jealous in a way. That Chloe had chosen her own fate, gone out on a good note.

The storm raged in Chloe’s head, and in Max’s apparently.

They pressed on, together, and Chloe felt things deeper than she had in six months because of Max. They worked together so well, and Chloe wished so hard that Rachel could meet Max, that the three of them could fit together like the interlocking pieces of a single person they were.

They worked together so well they found out the truth. Digging up the horrors of the Dark Room, and then they found Rachel.

It was confusing after that, Max said she’d had to rewind dozens of times to make sure they both survived. But mostly it was confusing because Chloe couldn’t focus anymore, the static in her head matched the storm that now raged on the outside.

The storm had come to Arcadia Bay, the storm from her dreams.

Arcadia Bay that had stolen Rachel, that had stolen her father, that had taken Max away from her for so long when she’d needed her.

It deserved to burn.

But then Max, poor Max, thought that she was the one who had caused it, her messing with time creating a storm. Chloe was too shocked to correct that assumption, too taken in by the horror and guilt in Max’s eyes as they watched the storm overtake the bay.

And oh, oh this would be the moment, wouldn’t it? This was what Chloe had been looking for. She found herself caring again in the reflection of Max’s heartbroken eyes.

She found that maybe she didn't want the bay to die, that maybe she wanted it, her mom, and even her step… dad to survive.

But not herself, she couldn’t go on without Rachel. Maybe it was selfish, asking Max who had already suffered more than anyone else that week. But Chloe was selfish at her core. Max and Rachel had been what ground her, and one of those was now pulling her in the other direction.

So Chloe asked Max to let her go, if she died, the storm would never come. It would forever be in her dreams, and she would be with Rachel and William. That's all she wanted, and it was so selfish of her to ask this of Max, small and wet and fucking screaming because Max didn’t want to let her go.

It was Chloe’s selfishness that made her kiss Max, to show her that she loved her, but that this was the answer. It wasn’t for Max’s benefit, it was only so Chloe could express herself, so she could kiss her like she wanted to before dying.

Chloe watched as Max focused on the picture of the butterfly, about to travel back in time to save the bay.

And then Chloe was walking into the bathroom again, a storm ready to be unleashed onto this town for its sins, but still in her head for now. The storm contained within her dreams. The storm that died alongside her on the bathroom floor.


End file.
